High humidity

[peter.coombe]

When is it gunna stop raining! Is everyone else in the eastern states experiencing day after day of high humidity? Currently 99% outside and 57% in the workshop with the air con on. I have a guitar top and back, a mandolin top and mandola top all lined up ready to glue the braces. Have not glued a single brace since October. This is getting to be ridiculous. Before October it sat around 40% for months.

Frustrated. I think I need a dehumidifier. Any suggestions?

[kiwigeo]

A dehumidifier would be useful but a short term fix would be to get a drying box/cabinet set up. There are various designs around ranging from a cardboard box with a light bulb to an old cupboard with light bulbs and fans.

[graham mcdonald]

It is very annoying. The humidity here in Canberra 'should' be down to around 30% by 1-2pm any afternoon (as Peter will well know) and it is annoyingly staying up around 55-60%. I sold my humidifier 20 years ago when I moved from Sydney!

cheers

[peter.coombe]

I have a solution. Turn the heater on. At the risk of blowing up the power bill, I now have the air con on "dry" and the heater on. This is quite an effective dehumidifier. The air con can only remove moisture if it is cooling and the heater forces it to keep cooling. The humidity has dropped to 45%. Is now 87% outside so that is excellent. Thin bits of wood are now cupping in the other direction so certainly is working. Problem now is the other half just came in and left the outside door open. AAARRRRR! Sigh. The guitar top is hung up to dry.

[J.F. Custom]

Agreed!! Very frustrating indeed...

You beat me to it though Pete. I have a Delonghi Dehumidifier/Air-Con Combo. In these extremes that we are experiencing however, the unit even in pure de-humidify mode can't bring it down enough so I don't see that solving your problem. I found the same thing you did - in combination with my ceramic heater it works. Unfortunately though, we've had the high humidity with temps that are not conducive to wanting to use a heater... Not to mention the dollars ticking over with both units running full power for long enough to bring the RH down, glue braces, then let dry.

Hard problems to solve without full climate control operating 24/7. I for one can't afford or justify that so have to work within it when possible but it's been a bad, oh, nine months or so here... and we are heading into our 'wet season' winter... *sigh*

Jeremy.

[liam_fnq]

welcome to my world.

A couple of times last year I saw it hit 55% in the afternoon.

I got a Dimplex dehumidifier from Santa. At this rate I'll need a new one every Christmas.

[Bob Connor]

I have a lined room 3m x 6m where I keep my wood and go bar deck.

It has a DeLonghi de-humidifier in it that runs all the time and keeps the humidity at 40%.

It doesn't work too well in winter however when the temperature is colder.

[Kim]

Toooo dryyyy, can't talk aaaaaarrrrrrrrgggggguuuuuuhhhhhhh!

Kim in Perth.

[Bob Connor]

Have a beer then. Oh - that's right . You don't like the stuff

[peter.coombe]

Well I discoved the limits to the heater and air con combination. Started raining again and it went up to 54%. Need to wait for another day.

[Allen]

As LIam said. Try and live in our world. It hasn't stopped raining in 8 months.

I've got a Delonghi in a fully insulated and lined room and it works hard all day to keep it between 40 and 50%. Get's bloody hot in there, but at least it's a dry heat and feels a lot better than out in the main part of the shed. Some days it's easily 45 degrees in there. Makes for a very favorable open time when using hide glue.

There were a couple times today when we got about 30 mm rain in around 60 seconds. It's starting to get a bit depressing.

[liam_fnq]

Allen, the insulation is prob not helping your cause but the plastic film will. I've got plastic lining ove the lattice door and window in the sealed laundry/tonewood bunker. The Dimplex says 38 degrees mostly. I wouldn't want to live in there even though you can feel the dryness instantly. Only bitch is that the Dimplex occasionally turns itself off or resets to 65% humidity.

[matthew]

its driving me a bit nuts too here in Sydney. Bass restoration has stopped. but I have a lot of blocks and molds and rib bending and rough shaping to do so I'm saving all the gluing up for a later date when it dries a bit. I do have to joint a double bass top plate though and rough shape it. i'll post a few pics of that!

To get things really dry at all temperatures you need a "dessicant dehumidifier", not the condenser variety. But more expensive. A dessicant dehumidifier blows the moist air out of the building and there is no need to empty buckets of water or pipe out the liquid.

I don't have one.

[peter.coombe]

Well yesterday it dropped to 40% outside and stayed at 42% in the workshop all day. Finally!! Yesterday was a mad scramble day to do some gluing. Unfortunately today it is up around 55% again. Sigh.

Peter

[matthew]

Peter if the humidity comes good for just one day are you still happy to press on with gluing? I'd be more comfortable only if it has been dry enough for a few days to allow the wood to acclimatise again.

[peter.coombe]

Point taken, and more time would have been better, but I did have the humidity down to 45% the day before for most of the day. I also put the top next to the heater all morning before starting to glue. Desperate times! I did not glue any mandolin tops because they are more than twice as thick as a guitar top and the back is still waiting to be glued. Seems to be ok. The humidity has gone back up over 50% and the top has domed a bit which is what you would expect.

[duh Padma]

Regarding humidity.

Well truth be known...me don't pay no attention to it.

Thats right , me don't.

For a couple of reasons.

It seems that the wishbone designs me build some how have a built in spring~e~ness to them, because they don't crack or haven't so far.

I really think its because very few of me builds leave the Kootenay Mountains of British Columbia and because me only use air dried indigenous woods. The tree grew up on that mountain behind me or over on the back side of that one over there. No it weren't logged on a New Moon Night in the dead of winter to the sound of tribal drummmin and naked dancing dakinies. However that wood did grow up here and its as if it is accustomed to the areas intense hot and cold , with 2 wet and 2 dry spells each year.

The instruments that have left B.C. very seldom ever return and are still going strong. One, an all cedar build is going through its paces in the rain forests of Costa Rica right at the moment and another one returned from the scorching heat of a Mexican summer unscathed and reeking of tequila..you don't thank that...naw.

So me don't know, is it the design or the fact that the woods used breath and shift with one another? Then perhaps its the fiberglass and cement lining me do on the on inside that prevents them from cracking. What you think?


Blessings
duh Padma

[Clancy]

I've got 2 OM's going at the moment whose bodies were put together in Canberra before coming to Alice Springs.
Oct/Nov last year the humidity in my workshop just wouldn't go down.
I knew I had to get the tops braced & carved and the bodies assembled before leaving for Alice.
When it finally did get to 45-50%RH I quickly braced both tops.
After shaping the braces I waited till the next time it got to 45-50%RH and glued the tops on.
At no time did I give it a couple of days for the wood to assimilate.
Both tops are from the same englemann stash.
Both tops are braced identically using strips from the same piece of sitka.
Both tops have a 25' radius.
Both tops lost their dome shortly after arriving in Alice Springs.

Now, after some time here, one top's dome has returned and the other has stayed flat.
Go figure?

[Puff]

Does anyone here size with or soak their belly and back body woods in HHG prior to construction?

[duh Padma]

Ummm...not me Puff...why wood me wanna do that for?

[Lillian]

Does anyone here size with or soak their belly and back body woods in HHG prior to construction?

Intriguing concept. HHG shrinks as it dries. Is it "condensing" the wood as it dries? What are your reasons for doing it? What results are you finding when you do it?

[DarwinStrings]

As LIam said. Try and live in our world. It hasn't stopped raining in 8 months.

The weather people said we just got 440mm in the last 24 hrs, I have not been doing any woodwork except for a emergency repair on a broken Krammer headstock, the guy needed it to fly to some festival and play in Adelaide so I got it done for him but now they have shut that airport anyway.

Jim

[Puff]

The original idea was to condition and stabilise and tighten things up in open fibred or figured flatsawn timber and rotary sliced veneers. I 'think' it gives a bit of insurance when the weather does what weather does

[Allen]

The RH in the Kootneys will be pretty good all year round for building Padma. Unless of course your've got a wood fired stove roaring away when the temp drops to -20 and below. Use to live in Cranbrook for a little bit, and my mom and dad are in Falkland now. Weather is much more agreeable here for me though even with the high humidity.

[jeffhigh]

Hey Padma, its probably also the type of instruments you are building that is archtops without crossbracing.
Not as much locking in of the wood against shrinkage, leading to cracks